


Fever Dream

by KingOfFanfiction



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: /she/ isn't named, ??? - Freeform, Angst, I hate tagging, Kind of AU, M/M, Narry - Freeform, Not A Happy Ending, Slow Burn, Sorry Not Sorry, at all, but /she/ is important, but not drastically, liam and louis aren't mentioned, minor F/M, narry storan - Freeform, slice-of-life, v minor, you get the point
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-18
Updated: 2015-05-18
Packaged: 2018-03-31 05:24:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3966007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KingOfFanfiction/pseuds/KingOfFanfiction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's Harry's favorite dream, and Niall's just a fever dream.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fever Dream

**Author's Note:**

> Kind of based off of Fever Dream by Iron and Wine . . . I actually tried with this one.
> 
> It also kind of represents my current issues happening, and it was hard to write this, so bear with the work.

It's after an agonizingly drawn out day of attempting to write songs, that Harry spills his three-month-held secret. They're seated in the grainy sand, hands warming bottles of alcohol and feet adorned with sand.

Harry's laugh is loud in his ear, but the only traffic he can hear is the wind and waves. He'd find it peaceful, but Harry ends up leaning on his shoulder, warm breath fanning over his neck in short bursts. Harry's arm wraps around Niall's waist as he dips further into the sand, and he whispers about her.

The news of her is spilled all over Niall's neck; her name and existence rolls down his neck to dip into his spine and melt into his toes. Niall sobers up instantly. His body is suddenly chilled, and Harry pulls away with a distant giggle like he hadn't just snapped Niall in two.

Niall tries to smile, tries to act as if he had seen the punch coming, but Harry doesn't notice.

He tries in vain to push her name deep into the crevices of his forgotten memories, tries to hide her away in the darkest corners of his brain. But, all he can do is down the rest of Harry's drink until he's yelling at him with a hazed voice.

Later that night, when everyone's gone back to their rooms, empty bottles in hands and sand on their lips, Niall feels dread blossom in the pit of his stomach.

He tries to sleep it off, but he ends up throwing it up. He's bent over the toilet, throat torn and tears streaming down his face. He downs his fourth shot of cheap liquor, and all he can see is the image of him snogging her.

He vomits once more, and Niall doesn't know if he's crying from pain or from Harry.

He flushes the toilet in an attempt to keep the images away, in an attempt to forget him, but it's not that easy when _him_ is Harry.

__ _

In the morning, Niall wakes up with the sour taste of lethargy lingering on his tongue and a regretful headache pounding in his skull. He wakes up with the image of her in his head.

He scrolls through his phone; all of his contacts look like Harry's name. When he looks at his texts, all he can imagine is Harry texting her. He can hear Harry's deep drawls of _I love you_ s and her quiet blushes.

It gradually gets worse.

The coffee mix looks like the deep colour of her hair, the blue of his coffee mug matches her eyes, the red of the kitchen walls is her lipstick, everything he sees is her. The lettering on the broadcasts, the newspaper headings, the coupons tucked under his door, the title of the book sitting on his coffee table, everything has her name plastered perfectly next to Harry's.

Niall just wants to close his eyes. But Harry is, too important.

He calls Niall, voice hushed over the other end of the phone, and Niall does his best to ignore the barbed wire carving into the walls of his stomach. He can hear Harry smiling over the end of the phone, but it's not a smile full of love and affection.

Because Niall is always the best friend.

He's never the lover, _the one_ , the boyfriend. He's just _My best friend Niall_ and nothing more.

Niall accepts the dinner invite; he can't say no.

__ _

Harry looks at Niall like he's the sun, but Niall knows Harry looks at her like she's the world and the galaxy above. She's a constant, but Niall always sets.

When Harry greets him at the restaurant, he smells different, something like pine and mint, something musky and foreign. Maybe she bought it for him, or maybe Harry bought it for himself. Whatever the answer is, Niall knows Harry didn't put on this new cologne just for him. Niall tries to remind himself that he's nothing special. He focuses on the scent of the rosemary sprinkled on his food or the olive oil next to him instead of the thought of Harry trying to impress him.

He's just the best friend.

The best friend who cares, too much. Too much to let Harry not come over after dinner.

Harry stumbles into his kitchen, digs around in the freezer, waggling his bum around as he hums silently until he finds the ice cream. _Mango_ , his favorite.

Harry spoons out the freezer burnt ice cream before nudging the spoon to Niall's lips. He obliges, eating the ice cream that he loved dearly. Now, it just tastes like broken hearts.

His laughs are low and warm like heated honey. They drip through Niall's pores and marinate in his bloodstream. Niall feels like a lit candle, but the picture of him hand-feeding her blows out his flame with a sizzle.

Niall figures Harry's drank, too much again tonight. He can tell by the toothy smiles he's flaunting and the red blotches that travel down his neck.

Niall drives him home; he ignores Harry ramble on about her. He tries to listen to the silence outside of the car; he tries to focus on the darkness around him.

Niall doesn't focus on mapping out Harry's face, the wrinkles next to his eyes when he grins, the glint in his eyes; he focuses on the scent of gasoline and the tough leather of the steering wheel under his fingers.

Harry smiles dreamily when he talks about her, and Niall wonders if the sky is vacant tonight because the stars found their way home in Harry's teeth. He imagines the clusters of stars wrapping themselves up in his pearly whites and red lips.

But the stars aren't for him to kiss or admire, they're for her, and her only.

When he gets Harry home safely, he tucks Harry in and sings him a bit of _Iron and Wine_.

Niall can hear her harmonizing with him as he molds his voice into the lyrics. He imagines her pressing her fingers into his chest, her handprints staying there like his chest was made of wet cement. He imagines her kissing his temples, tattoos of her crimson lipstick on his head.

Harry leans up and kisses Niall's forehead before falling asleep. Niall tries not to waste all of his fingers counting all of the tattoos or freckles he could kiss while Harry's asleep.

Harry's mumbling in his sleep, a language he only speaks when he's deep into a strange dream. He whispers Niall's name, and Niall wants to kiss his name off Harry's lips.

He leaves Harry's house before the urge becomes an intense heat of _It's so close_ , and _Just this once_.

__ _

The next week, Niall begins to find bobby pins in Harry's bathroom.

The bobby pins are long and wiry; they're the splinters of her undressing in Harry's bed. His fingers fumble from the prickle of cold fear when he picks one up. The bobby pin is hard and sharp, and when it collapses painfully onto his milky skin, it feels like it's sucking the pride out of him. He imagines pinning his bangs back with them.

Maybe Harry would like him better if he looked like her.

He wonders if Harry fell in love with her looks or her personality. Niall wonders if her eyes are a bolder blue than his, or if her lips are thicker than his. Maybe she's skinnier than him, maybe Harry doesn't like the thickness of his thighs or the plushness of his stomach.

Niall finds her ponytail holder in his medicine cabinet; a blonde strand tangles in the air when Niall picks it up. He can see Harry curling her blonde hair around his fingers. He can see her legs tangled up with Harry's, or her arms wrapped tightly around his torso.

Niall finds her lipstick tube in the bathroom drawer. He can see her leaving lipstick stains on the inside of his neck, a silent statement of a lipstick ring around Harry's dick.

Niall feels like he's choking when he lathers the deep red colour on his lips.

__ _

Niall visits Harry again, and there's new furniture. The pillows on his sofa are a muted pink, the curtains are a soft white, his bed spread is a deep navy, everything's different.

Niall wonders if he and her are two rooms. The only difference being furniture. Did Harry fall for her features rather his like rearranged furniture?

The walls in the kitchen are a light green now, and Niall wonders if she tastes like wet paint when Harry kisses her.

Niall wonders how many times they've made breakfast together, how many times they've fought, how many times she's made Harry smile in the way only she can make him, he wonders how much better she is than him.

__ _

At night, Niall holds his phone in his hand like a lifeline. He hopes that Harry'll call him and whisper to him about how much he loves him.

Whisper _I love you so much_ , or _I dream of you more than I should_. Niall wonders if Harry does the same with her. Niall thinks she must hold her phone at night, waiting for Harry to call her and tell her everything Niall wants to hear be said to him.

Niall tries to fall asleep to the lullaby of the air conditioning unit until it's suffocating him.

  
_She must make him happy_ , he thinks. _She must be his everything_ , he stutters. _He must love her_ , he cries.

Niall stares at his phone waiting for Harry to call him first. If he stares at it hard enough, he must call.

But Harry never does.

Because she's Harry's favorite dream, and Niall's just a fever dream.


End file.
